


Time Capsule

by Candii010



Series: Persona 5: What if... [1]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, I finally updated this and now there's angst I guess, Shadow Sakura Sojiro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26591701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candii010/pseuds/Candii010
Summary: Who said an awakening had to be intense?
Relationships: Morgana & Sakura Futaba, Morgana & Sakura Sojiro, Sakura Futaba & Sakura Sojiro
Series: Persona 5: What if... [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934374
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Cutscene

Everyone has secrets, and Sojiro is no exception.

Once he’s certain there’s no one to follow him, he opens an old metal box with a mechanical lock. The digits move slowly, so as not to disturb either Futaba or Morgana. Chances are slim while they’re watching a film or a livestream. Futaba would have discovered it years ago if it was some kind of smart device, and not some old-fashioned manual security. The hinges creak as the lid lifts into place. Smart devices always seemed suspicious to him; she frequently insults their poor security and stealthy data collection. 

He grabs an old remote control, with wiry guts on the verge of spilling out. He twists it open with a screwdriver and replaces the batteries, careful not to pull anything loose. It miraculously blinks and whirrs with an array of buttons after decades of disuse; He attunes the remote to a special frequency and the wall mounted television stretches to the floor. Sojiro walks through as it closes behind him.

A light breeze ruffles his hair. This world is still peaceful, after the midnight channel rolled heads throughout Japan. But now that tranquility is a well deserved punch for having the power to help Futaba out of her depression, and doing nothing with it. With clenched hands, he tries to summon that card. It was blue, with two faces on the back…. And the space where its other side should be is gone, completely gone, thoroughly erased from his mind. He skims through memories of entering this world for the first time, every space where that.. persona should be is null and void. He tries and tries and tries until his nails dig into his hand and a splitting headache runs along his brain. The card doesn’t appear. The rustling leaves grow louder.

He flinches when someone walks beside him and the only tree stumps for a few miles. It’s a splitting image of himself, same clothes, same face, ignoring the glowing yellow eyes. Sojiro remembers the shadows here aren’t dangerous, they’ve been good company for a few years.

It asks “What seems to be the problem? Ready for change of heart, or something?”

It’s unsurprisingly hard to confess his deepest secrets. For a moment, he stares past it’s still, professional gaze. Maybe the drop in temperature is to blame, or it’s intentions staining the air, but he starts talking.

“I suppose you might call it that.”

“Really?” It scoffs at him. “Are you not running from your family, by hiding in this world? Futaba, Akira, Morgana… and Wakaba. The one that got away. What a shame. Could’ve convinced her to reciprocate your feelings. You like being needed because she didn’t want you; instead of being honest with them, you went and personalised masks to put them at a comfortable distance. And how they all needed you once Wakaba died. Hell, you let her--”

“--No! Don’t pull that trick on me again, we’ve been through this before. I’m not going to deny myself!”

“Prove it. Say why you deserve to take up rebellion after dismissing it so callously, all those years ago.”

“Everything..?” 

“How else could you take up a persona during your awakening? Can’t ignore your darkest parts, you of all people would know. So out with it already!” It crosses its arms over its chest, and glares at him like he used to when angry. That expression was only used for shadows.

“...Where should I begin?”

“Two years ago. You have better things to do than sit here all day, and It’ll be fun to recount our individual experiences when the time is actually appropriate.” The reflection adjusts its glasses.

“Remember Wakaba?”

“No, I don’t remember the woman you tried to court for fourteen months until you found out she was married, and was too humoured by your attempts to tell you.”

“Good to see your sense of humour hasn’t changed.”

It flickers briefly into a monstrous form. “Ahem.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll get on with it.” Sojiro took off his glasses.

“...Wakaba and I have been friends long after I quit working for the government. One day at 2 am when it was quiet, she brought me to Crossroads like we used to and started confessing that she was going to be assassinated by some of my old coworkers. She said “I think I might die. Sojiro, can you convince them to stop, somehow?” They were some of the nicest people I’ve known, and I thought something was slipped into her water, or she was just getting overworked. Then she brought out the research paper she’d been writing. Something about correlations between cognition and reality, and flipped it to a page that showed schematics for some device to harness it. When Wakaba tried to explain how risky a prototype was, how her boss wanted her to resign, her refusal, and whipped out a notice of termination she managed to overturn, I began to believe her. She knew I was the only one who could help. But I was so damn scared. Scared of the same things, but unlike Wakaba, I had been used to running. It’s why I left to run a coffee shop, instead of doing the right thing, I tried to hide; I told her she was crazy.”

When had he begun to cry?

“Wakaba looked like she was about to slap me. I’m still shocked at her ability to hold it together. I tried to get her to calm down, but she told me I betrayed her trust, called me a coward, complained I can’t even make her recipes right, and left behind everything. I think she knew I would keep it safe.”

“It was the last conversation we had before she died. I never believed the cover story, Wakaba was too determined to possibly… jump into traffic so suddenly, but the research she left would only get me killed. I hid it inside a cheap safe, and I kept the key on this necklace she gifted me.”

He holds up a thread-shaped gold necklace from beneath his shirt collar, and a rusty key barely glints in the light.

“God, I spend so many nights afraid of that thing. Terrified of someone finding it. Her daughter Futaba was incredibly smart, and I made the mistake of letting her uncle have custody.”

“One night, I woke up to twenty missed calls. They were all from Futaba. She was being abused horribly, and sometimes I see the evidence when I close my eyes. It was nothing short of life threatening. If she hadn’t stolen that phone, she might not have survived. I managed to win the court case, but she was so damaged she couldn’t speak for days at a time. Futaba would rarely leave her room, and I left her there, because I didn’t want to hurt her even more.”

“I let Futaba develop a palace for two years...”

It remarks “That desert pyramid was massive, I spent many months trying to get inside, but there’s only so much one can do alone.” Sojiro understands everything that was left unsaid.

His eyes widened in surprise. “You saw the Phantom Thieves work their way in?”

“Part of it; getting caught would result in too many problems, so I watched from afar. Futaba’s distortions were vanquished, but she should be the one to tell you what happened there.”

The shadow-as Wakaba called them-listens intently. “Futaba had become a hikikomori after Wakaba’s death… When they learned she died from a mental shutdown disguised as a suicide, and the bastard behind it had the audacity to send a false suicide note… She was devastated. So when Futaba’s condition improved dramatically one day, I knew it could have only resulted from psionic interference.”

“Problem was, I had been out of the loop for so long I didn’t know where to begin. So I came here.”

“How do you feel you’ve treated Wakaba Isshiki and Futaba Sakura?”

Sojiro pauses, taken off-guard. Anxiety creeps into his bones, but he can’t stop talking now, he knows what will happen if he stops.

“Everything was fine, for our time together. Then I went and brushed off her plea for help, when she needed me. You know what happens after that.” Sojiro is used to those feelings, not the new revelations filling his heart.

“As for Futaba, I...” 

It will strongly react to Sojiro’s hesitation. His emotions swirl inside of him. A lump forms in his throat, and he braces for an attack, if not a verbal lashing. That is what denied shadows do best. 

“Can’t you restate the truth?” Where he expects a dangerous transformation, there’s gentle prodding.

“I.. raised Futaba the best I could. Granted, anything would've been better than her uncle’s abuse, but if I had tried to use the metaverse and directly confront it…. I could've stopped it quickly. But is that really something a legal guardian should be doing? Looking back, running around in her heart feels invasive. Like skimming through her computer.”

“A very concise answer.” It smiles, and Sojiro can’t discern the intent behind it, both serene and cunning. “One more question: How does this introspection make you feel?”

“Useless. No what-ifs are going to fix the past; all that’s left is to change the present.”

“That’s just a part of being human. I’d ask if you accept it, but you already proved such.” It offers a hand and a deal, eyes glowing with excitement. “Let us renew the contract.” 

He takes it, “It was, ‘I art thou, thou art I’, right?” An azure flame transforms his shadow into a blue card. It disappears into his open palm.

“Correct.” It speaks inside his own mind. It’s comforting, familiar and nostalgic all at once.

Sojiro isn’t eager to practice summoning his Persona, and simply takes a moment to feel its presence and be sure he’s not having a stress-induced headache. He could start tomorrow, and come clean to both Akira and Futaba. Bringing the Phantom Thieves here would be an acceptable apology for his cowardice. There’s so much for Futaba to study, and nothing will attack them in this world. He reactivates the remote. There’s garbled meowing from the other side of the screen.

Futaba watches him step out of the television, and her plate shatters as she skillfully replicates that “(☉∀☉)” emoticon. 

“Sojiro had a persona the whole time?” Morgana exclaimed. Verbally. Like a person.

“Why is the cat talking?”


	2. Location Unlocked

Hoo, boy.

His feet are stuck in place as he stares down Morgana, silently wondering if he’s lost his mind. Come to think of it, Akira always had something familiar that he carried around. No, it was not the cat. There was a delinquent aura about him, but in a consciously subdued manner. It was different, not exactly rebellious. Rather, something else that separated him from society. Then again, he’d seen contradictory people with that ambience, from idols to yakuza to recently, his own daughter. And it seems to attract magic cats. A pang of nostalgia washes over him. 

“You hear something?” Futaba asked.

“We both know the cat’s out the bag, and…” He took a deep, deep sigh. “...talking too.”

Morgana and Futaba looked defeated, melting into melancholy.

“Don’t stress over an explanation right now. Let's just clean that mess before someone gets hurt.”

He grabs a broom left inside a large closet, along with a matching dustpan. Futaba held the dustpan in place as Sojiro swept the shards together; Futaba dumped the remains in the recycling and disposed of the broken plate. 

“Sorry for dropping it.”

“Don’t be. I would never get angry at you.”

Despite all odds, Morgana both understands human speech and speaks with human clarity.

“By the way, I’m not a cat.”

“What? You’ve eaten cat food for as long as I’ve fed you, how are you not a cat?”

“Sojiro’s got a point there, Morgana.”

“I’ve eaten chocolate before, and I’ll do it again to prove that I’m not a cat. Seriously!”

“But they’re toxic to you.” The part of Sojiro that became his persona questions Morgana’s intelligence. “Why would you risk poisoning yourself like that? What if you got sick or hospitalized?!”

“Uhh…” Futaba watches.

The cat should be damn lucky he didn’t get caught. Sojiro would absolutely have made a scene, scooping Morgana away from cat-unfriendly food, calling the nearest veterinarian, and sternly reprimanding whomever let it happen. Maybe he did spend a day researching cat needs, and the thought of Morgana suddenly vomiting made him equally uneasy.

“I never got ill from it, so I’m obviously not a cat.”

“That’s not what I asked for, and you know it.” Sojiro constrains his anger, pinching the furrowed spot between his brows. “Why did you risk hurting yourself? You could have died.”

Morgana stares at the floor, mumbling “You should see me in the metaverse.”

“Morgana, why can’t you answer me directly?”

“...It’s not something you’d understand. Sakura-san, I don’t know if you could help.”

Sojiro kneels in a practiced motion for feeding strays. “You genuinely haven’t any idea? Then what’s stopping you from discussing these feelings with the Phantom Thieves? They’d understand more than an old man like myself.”

Hissss! Morgana backs away from him.

“You think I’m just some accessory? Like a mascot?!”

“..No, I’m saying your needs are different, Morgana.”

“I’ll prove to all of you how important I am! I’m going to show you who the useless one actually is!

“Mona, you don’t have to do this. We’re here for you.”

“Don’t you dare call me that. In case you’ve forgotten, I'm also a capable navigator. But everyone thinks you’re cute and quirky, and whenever I try to say something, they always ignore me!” Morgana’s unsheathed claws tapped against the floor. “Especially Skull.”

Sojiro and Futaba purposely blink very, very slowly.

“I’m not a fucking cat!” Morgana ripples away into the metaverse. Sojiro hears something sprint into the open television, and reaches into his pocket for a remote that is now missing.

“Don’t try to find me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are only more questions, though the night is young, and they can't bear to lose anyone else.

**Author's Note:**

> He might as well take advantage of the holiday tomorrow, and explain himself in the middle of the night.


End file.
